Alcoholism And Stress: A Framework For Future Treatment Strategies

Abstract

Both anxiety and alcohol use disorders are among the leading causes of the burden of disease in high-income countries. They co-occur much more often than one would expect based on chance as many anxious individuals drink alcohol to reduce anxiety (Stewart & Conrod, 2008). But in the longer term, problem drinking is associated with elevations in negative affect (including anxiety). Thus, a problematic vicious cycle can develop between anxiety and alcohol misuse. Recent models of psychopathology have emphasised a role of relatively automatic cognitive processes. Both anxiety and alcohol use problems have been associated with attentional biases. Until now, little research has been conducted on the cognitive processes in anxious problem drinkers and the aim of the current study is to examine the role of attentional bias in these drinkers. It was hypothesised that anxious problem drinkers would be quick to direct their attention to alcohol stimuli especially after an anxiety-related prime stimulus. In total, 55 anxious students who frequently drank alcohol completed a primed Alcohol Stroop task. Results showed that participants were slower colour-naming alcohol words compared to neutral words. When specifically examining anxiety-alcohol trial sequences, it was shown that participants were especially slow in colour-naming alcohol words when they were preceded by an anxiety related prime compared to a neutral prime. These findings reveal an interaction between anxiety and alcohol stimuli at a relatively automatic level. In the light of new developments regarding re-training of automatic processes as attentional bias using computer programs (Cognitive Bias Modification), these findings highlight the need to take emotions and drinking motives into account when modifying attentional bias in anxious problem drinkers.